Two Years After ; Friends Who Lie ; No More Secrets

by Paul J. Teague

  ‘It’s his name on the Facebook profile,’ Rosie replied, fighting back her tears. She could feel herself teetering on the brink, a familiar place. It was unbearable to imagine returning to the hospital. Her father was too old to be caring for a toddler full time. If he died – God forbid – Sam would be taken into care. It was the one fear that drove her on. It was the worst thing that could happen, the final shame: the realisation that she was no longer capable of even caring for a child.

  ‘Are you going to report it to the police? Or Edward?’ Vera continued. Her calm and measured voice always helped Rosie, like a metronome, marking a steady pace: never too fast, never too slow. It moved Rosie along at a tempo she could cope with. If she could just hang onto Vera’s words, she’d get through it.

  ‘Should I?’ Rosie asked. She hadn’t even considered it. The less she had to do with the police and social care, the better. After all, they’d already been called out to her suicide bid at the flyover, along with an ambulance.

  ‘I certainly think you should have kept the picture as evidence,’ Vera continued. ‘If it happened again, at least the police would take you seriously.’

  ‘Is it an offence, though?’ Rosie asked. ‘I mean, we chatted together. Isn’t this what millennials use instead of business cards these days?’

  ‘It is an offence, Rosie, and you shouldn’t have to put up with it. Do you feel up to confronting him about it?’

  ‘I like the man – I liked the man,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s the last person I would have expected to do this. What the hell makes a guy think that’s okay? When Liam and I first met, we went for a coffee and a chat. Our marriage also managed to survive without him ever sending me a nude picture. Maybe we got it all wrong.’

  Vera laughed at that.

  ‘Well, some things have certainly changed, that’s for sure. Bill and I didn’t even sleep together for two years. In all the years I was with him, he never sent me a picture of himself naked. I’d have just laughed, anyway. Mind you, he ended up leaving me for a younger woman, so he turned out to be just as bad as the rest of them. Most of these youngsters can work through their Tinder matches in the time it took us to get into bed with each other. No wonder we see so many of them so screwed up and ending up at Trinity Heights—’

  She stopped dead.

  ‘It’s alright, Vera. You don’t get admitted to that sort of place four times in two years for nothing. I, of all people, know that.’

  ‘But you’re different, Rosie.’

  Vera’s tone slipped back into doctor-patient mode.

  ‘You had every reason to be there. What happened to you would send any sane person over the edge.’

  Rosie wasn’t so sure, but she was exhausted and wanted the Skype call to end. She’d had enough. Besides, somebody had joined Vera in the room – Rosie could hear them shuffling about away from the webcam – and she could see that Vera was uncomfortable about them continuing the call without the required level of confidentiality.

  Maybe she had a new man in tow. Perhaps she had kids; Rosie had never thought to ask. These chats were informal between friends. They were nothing to do with Trinity Heights; their conversations were strictly off the record. Rosie liked to think of Vera as her friend, but it was a relationship forged in flames.

  They ended the call, and Rosie did her night checks before heading up to bed. Liam used to take care of security. He’d work around the switches so that all electrical appliances were turned off properly. She could still hear his voice: It wastes electricity and could potentially cause a fire at night.

  Liam was always so precise about things. It was a pity he hadn’t been more precise about the level of drink he’d consumed that night. He was barely over the limit, but it was enough to invalidate the insurance, turning him into an offender, rather than a victim. Her old friends shunned her because they were unable to navigate the choppy waters of offering sympathy to her while carrying their loathing of a man who’d been over the legal alcohol limit. It was borderline, even the coroner had said it. But it was enough to turn Liam from a good guy to an arch enemy.

  Rosie checked the main doors, pushing down on the handles to make sure they were properly locked. She even wiggled the window locks, just in case. How could a single image shake her so severely? She’d seen pictures of naked men before and would see them again, but this one had shocked her.

  One of the benefits of being on her current drug regime was that Rosie was quick to fall asleep. Unfortunately, she also experienced vivid and surreal dreams, and often woke up sweating at unearthly hours of the night. So when she jumped up in bed, at 2.37 am, Rosie wasn’t particularly surprised. Her dream was filled with the faces of Phil and Terry laughing, fuelled by pints of beer. They were taking pictures of body parts and sending them to her on their phones, all the time laughing, calling her a basket case and saying she deserved it.

  Her skin was wet with sweat. She didn’t even bother with nightwear any more. It just ended up in the washing basket the next day, anyway. She had enough washing to deal with from Sam, without adding to the mounds unnecessarily. She’d given up changing the sheets, making them last a week. They’d have been in the machine every day, otherwise.

  Rosie was convinced she’d heard a sound. She sat up in bed, her heart pounding, and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders, feeling suddenly vulnerable in her nakedness. There was an old t-shirt beside the bed, one of Liam’s that she hadn’t been able to send to the charity shop when cleaning out his wardrobe. It had a picture of Robert Smith from The Cure on it. They’d been lucky to get those concert tickets, and it had been a brilliant night. It made a great nightshirt too.

  She covered herself and got out of bed, then gently pulled back one of the curtains, as if she had something to be ashamed about if someone caught her looking. The street outside was tranquil, cars lined up, parked neat and tight in front of a row of London terraces built at a time when the most action they’d see was a horse coming up the road, with its owner delivering coal or seeking scrap iron.

  Her bedroom door was open so she could hear Sam if he stirred. She didn’t want to wake him; he’d never get back to sleep if he was disturbed at that time of night. Slowly, cautiously, Rosie picked up her phone and made her way to the open bedroom door, doing her best not to creak the floorboards and being extra cautious passing Sam’s room. His door was slightly ajar, the dim night light still providing its protection against bogeymen and monsters. She tiptoed past as if she might trip a land mine at any moment and all hell would be unleashed.

  At the top of the staircase, she saw what had disturbed her; something had been pushed through the letterbox and had thudded onto the ground. Her stomach tensed, and she swallowed hard. Who was dropping off letters this late? Not even menus from takeaways were delivered in the middle of the night.

  Rosie made her way down the stairs at some speed, anxious to see what had been delivered. It was a white A4 envelope, the type used in a corporate environment. The light from the streetlamp outside allowed her to see it had handwriting on the front.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand, but she was now intent on checking the envelope, needing to know what had shaken her peace in the dead of night. She picked it up and turned it around, searching for clues as to what was inside. Her phone vibrated again, but it could wait – this was more important.

  The envelope bore her name, house number and street name. She tore it open, placing her phone on the floor to free up both hands. Inside was a copy of the staff handbook that Edward had given her to read. There was a handwritten compliment slip inside.

  I found this on your desk. I thought you might want to make an early start over breakfast. Edward.

  The sweat covering her body was cold and clammy now, yet her forehead was burning. What was Edward Logan thinking, posting this through her letterbox so late at night? It was intrusive and threatening, like something a bully might say: I know where you live.

  Rosie stifled a scream as she looked up and caught
a glimpse of Liam walking into the dining room at the end of the long corridor. He was holding Phoebe, as he always was when she saw him. Every time, Phoebe was dead. If she was going to see things, her screwed up brain might at least give her an illusion where her child was alive.

  Seeing Liam again meant she was on dangerous ground. Her phone vibrated again. She picked it up. There were more messages, four of them from James’ account on Facebook. She knew she shouldn’t look – not in her current frame of mind – but she ran into the flames anyway.

  There were four images. She half expected them to be more nudes, but she was wrong. Instead, three of the photos showed a dead rat laying in a desk drawer. It was her desk drawer. The fourth image had been taken at a distance. It wasn’t very clear, but she knew where it had been taken. Somebody had photographed her sitting on the bench earlier that day, eating her baked potato. Haylee was with her.

  Rosie didn’t care about waking Sam any more. She couldn’t even think about his needs. The walls of the hallway closed in on her, dark thoughts crushing her. She screamed loudly and thumped the wall in frustration. As Sam stirred upstairs, she collapsed onto the floor and shuffled into the corner, in a desperate bid to conceal herself. She stayed there until morning, when she was woken by her father’s knock at the door.

  Chapter Ten

  Rosie had one more day to get through before the weekend. If she could just make it until Friday evening, she’d get some headspace.

  She pretended that everything was fine when her father arrived. By the time his knock at the door had woken her up, Liam’s old t-shirt was stuck to her skin where the sweat from the previous night had dried. She’d crawled along the hallway, run up the stairs quietly to grab her dressing gown, given her hair a quick brush through with her fingers, then answered the door as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Morning Rosie, not showered and dressed yet?’ her father smiled. He knew better than to judge. She’d noticed some time ago how he seemed to have picked up on what Vera did. He would only prod her gently to do the next thing that needed to be done.

  As he stood on the doorstep, Rosie heard the door in the house next to hers opening up.

  ‘Everything OK over there?’ came the sound of her neighbour’s voice.

  Rosie stayed inside her house, unwilling to engage.

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ Rosie’s dad answered. ‘Why do you ask?’ he added.

  ‘That child was crying for over an hour last night. I almost called the police again.’

  Rosie wanted to run outside and tell her neighbour to get stuffed, but she knew she’d have to play it cool. This was just the sort of thing that could get Sam taken away from her. She stepped outside so she could see her neighbour, Anne.

  The air was cold and damp, her breath visibly making clouds as she spoke.

  ‘I had a devil of a job nursing him back to sleep,’ she lied. ‘He was ill last night, and nothing would settle him.’

  She felt her father tensing; he knew.

  ‘So long as that’s all it was,’ Anne replied. ‘I was concerned, that’s all. What with last time…’

  ‘Thanks so much for checking, we appreciate it,’ Iain said, putting a lid on the conversation. ‘Come into the house, Rosie. You’ll catch your death out here.’

  Iain Campbell knew well enough not to force the issue. Rosie saw how her father always scanned the house when he came in, saying nothing, but obviously looking for the signs that things were slipping away from her again.

  ‘Your phone is on the floor here,’ he said, bending down to pick it up. He grimaced as he did so. It was his back, nature’s curse for so many years of manual labour.

  ‘It’s okay dad, I’ve got it,’ Rosie said, picking up her phone and retrieving the envelope and handbook that were still on the floor from the night before.

  ‘Post so early in the morning?’ Iain asked.

  ‘Just a bit of light reading from work.’

  Rosie tried to brush it off, but she could tell he knew. He was there when she was born, modern like that even back then. Right from the start, he’d been an involved father– he knew his daughter, and could tell she was covering up. He didn’t push it, though and Rosie loved him even more for that.

  Getting ready for work that morning was a blur of rushing and panic. She showered and dressed at speed, leaving Iain to do the honours with Sam, and skipped breakfast, rushing for the tube and getting there in the nick of time. She needed to slink into the office without seeing James, to give herself time to think things through.

  Haylee was at the reception desk when she walked in, ever the company sentinel, watching the comings and goings and exchanging pleasantries with all who passed.

  ‘Is Edward in?’ Rosie asked, not even bothering with a greeting.

  ‘Good morning to you too!’ Haylee smiled. ‘You look like you’ve been binge-watching Netflix all night. You’ve got rings around the rings around your eyes.’

  ‘Something like that,’ Rosie replied, her mind elsewhere. ‘So, is he?’

  ‘When isn’t Edward in the office?’ Haylee muttered. ‘If it wasn’t for him signing in and out, I’d swear he spent the night in that office. No doubt hanging upside down from the ceiling, dressed in a black cape.’

  She laughed at her own joke and Rosie squeezed out a smile.

  ‘See you later,’ she said, rushing off down the corridor. She’d been away two years – almost to the day – yet when she stepped inside that office, it was as if that time had never passed. It was like riding a bicycle. If she thought about it too much, she didn’t think she could do it, but when she stepped through the doors, her feet began pedalling and she stayed upright, moving on ahead.

  The sound of a raised voice echoed along the corridor. It was Neil Jennings again. This time he wasn’t rowing with David. Edward Logan was his latest target.

  Rosie had been all fired up to storm into Edward’s office and confront him over his midnight visit. But Neil Jennings had taken the wind out of her sails, already with Edward, giving him a piece of his mind. Rosie wondered how long Neil’s blood pressure would be able to take it. She knew he could be ferocious at times, but he appeared to be particularly stressed out nowadays.

  As Rosie opened up her office door, she saw Mackenzie skulking out of the meeting room opposite. She decided to try again with the new apprentice. They’d got off to a particularly uncomfortable start the previous day.

  ‘Hi Mackenzie, how are things?’

  ‘You know,’ Mackenzie answered. ‘Another day, another meeting room, more teas and coffees. I’m not sure I’m cut out for the world of work.’

  You and me both, Rosie thought.

  ‘It gets easier,’ she smiled. ‘Before you know it, you’ll be retiring with a gold watch.’

  ‘What?’ Mackenzie answered gracelessly.

  She probably didn’t even know what a watch was. Come to think of it, Mackenzie was unlikely to know what retirement was. Her generation would probably never experience it.

  ‘Have a great day,’ Rosie said, deciding not to get herself in any deeper. She felt a moment of panic as she stepped into her office. Would she be as useless conversing with her own child when he got older?

  She dropped off her lunch in the kitchen, wedging it into the fridge which was packed with half-finished margarine tubs, purchases which hadn’t been claimed by the owners for weeks and several items which were no longer identifiable. Various members of staff – some familiar, others not – passed her in the corridor and in the kitchen. She was relieved that there was no sign of James.

  The sun was streaming into her office as she stepped inside, and she was immediately grateful for the crass duo of Terry and Phil who had released her from a working life of darkness and isolation. The view over London was stunning. It sent fire through her veins as she surveyed the city from thirteen floors up.

  David’s head appeared around the door. That was a David Willis signal for I’m not staying, this is just brief. He looke
d tired and worn. Rosie didn’t recall him looking like that before. He used to enjoy his work so much.

  ‘I don’t think I mentioned next weekend? It’s a team-building event initiated by you-know-who. I’m so sorry – I should have mentioned it earlier. I have too many things on my mind. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes and I’ve been distracted. Edward will pass on the details, I’m sure. I hope it doesn’t mess things up for you at home? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

  His head disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. David Willis didn’t ever need to apologise to her. He had saved her life by keeping her salary flowing, even if it was at a heavily reduced rate. If David had not bought her that time, her life would have caved in by now. He was an angel.

  ‘Good morning!’

  It was Edward Logan. He seemed none the worse for his altercation with Neil.

  Rosie felt the fury firing up in her the moment she set her eyes on his face. Her hand darted towards her bag, and she pulled out the envelope that had been pushed through her letterbox.

  ‘What on earth were you thinking, posting this at this time of night?’

  She tried to keep her voice calm and regulated, but deep down she didn’t particularly care about being professional, rational or measured. She just wanted to spit the words out at him like a machine gun, leaving him bloodied and reeling.

  Rosie waved the white envelope in front of his face, pointing to the handwriting in extreme frustration as if trying to teach him a lesson which just wasn’t sinking in.

  ‘Where does it mention that in your bloody handbook, eh? Where does it say you can wake me up in the middle of the night with something that could have easily waited until morning? I don’t care who you are, Edward. You can be the king of all human resources land as far as I’m concerned, but this is just not on – it’s not normal. I’ve worked here for years; it wasn’t necessary before, and it isn’t necessary now.’